From: David Harris David.Harris@pmail.gen.nz
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 01:04:12 +1200
Reply to: Pegasus Mail Announcments
Subject: Keeping the home fires burning
It's a busy time here at Pegasus Mail Central: we have new releases of
almost everything except our Macintosh product coming out at the moment,
many of them with signficant enhancements - and the list of things on
which we are working is considerable. Amidst the cold of a Dunedin Winter
(we're in the Southern Hemisphere), it's easy to stay inside and work,
churning out the things our clients have asked us for.
But all this work requires funding, and the Winter months have
traditionally been hard for us: with the smothering dominance of
Microsoft in the marketplace, the Winters are getting tougher and
tougher. We're a small business and we don't have big overheads, but
we still need a certain basic income in order to be able to survive, and
to continue to offer services we believe are still important. Microsoft
may be squeezing everyone else out, but we don't want to be part of that
trend.
Last year at around this time, I came to my clients asking for financial
support, and you responded, for which I was and still am immensely
grateful. Well, I hate to do it, but I'm coming to you again. Orders have
been very low for the last two months, and it's beginning to cause us some
problems - problems I'm hoping you can help me to solve.
I would like to put a few ideas to you, if you have a moment - some
that will help Pegasus Mail to keep warm through the worst of the
Southern Winter, and others that may help secure the future of a
product I still believe has real value as one of the few viable
alternatives available in an overshadowed industry.
Idea one: for the month of July, we would like to offer multi-user manual
upgrades at $35 off the normal price - i.e, US$100 per upgrade. You don't
have to do anything special to get this price - simply quote your existing
license number with your order and you'll automatically get the discount.
With so many of you being long-term, committed sites, we see this as a
kind of "loyalty" reward for you, that will also help us.
Idea two: for the month of July, we would like to offer single-user
manual upgrades at $10 off the normal price - i.e, $29.95. Same deal -
just quote your license number somewhere on your order and we'll give you
the discount.
Idea three: this idea is really aimed at our larger sites - sites who have
hundreds or thousands of users. I would like to set up a Pegasus Mail
"support consortium", consisting of larger sites who have made a long-
term commitment to my product. In exchange for a fixed annual "support
fee", these sites would get everything we produce and would be able to
come directly to me personally for technical support. For the first time
ever, we would produce pure electronic versions of all our manuals for
these sites and would keep them rigorously up-to-date, and available
online. This differs from previous license programs we have offered in
that there would be no "distribution lag".
The concept behind idea 3 is that by getting together a committed core of
large sites who are getting considerable value from Pegasus Mail, we will
be able to secure the future of the program by guaranteeing a basic income
level that will cover our costs. The concept really only works if we can
get a fairly large number of sites involved. If you would be willing to
join such a consortium for an annual fee somewhere between US$500 and
US$1000, please contact me directly as soon as you can expressing
interest; I'll collate the numbers and see if we have a workable group.
I have worked on Pegasus Mail for nearly ten years, and I still believe in
it as passionately now as I did at the start. The ideas and ideals that
originally inspired Pegasus Mail are just as valid now as they were then -
maybe even more so with the Microsoft juggernaut taking over the whole
industry. I also still *enjoy* Pegasus Mail - I like working on it and
making it better, and I like knowing that it still serves people well. To
my way of thinking it would be a real shame and a great loss if Pegasus
Mail were forced out of the industry simply because it couldn't earn the
small amount of income it needs to pay for itself, and I really don't want
that to happen. Let's see what we can do to prevent it, as a team.
Best regards,
-- David Harris --
------------------ David Harris -+- Pegasus Mail ----------------------
Box 5451, Dunedin, New Zealand | e-mail: David.Harris@pmail.gen.nz
Phone: +64 3 453-6880 | Fax: +64 3 453-6612
Thought for the day:
A penny saved is ridiculous.